Sen. Carper Urges ‘Supercommittee’ to Consider Measures that Reduce Wasteful and Ineffective Spending

WASHINGTON – Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, sent a letter to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction urging the Committee’s members to include a number of legislative proposals that would reduce the deficit by curbing wasteful and inefficient spending in the deficit reduction package that the Committee will submit to Congress later this fall. The letter follows two earlier letters sent by Sen. Carper to the Committee, one with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) urging the adoption of their bipartisan line item veto legislation and the second with Sen. Tom Coburn (R- Okla.) urging the adoption of their bipartisan legislation to reduce waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, known as the FAST Act.

In the letter, Sen. Carper details a number of proposals in six of the issue areas that have been examined in recent years by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, which he currently chairs. These proposals have lead to bipartisan legislation that would address the Postal Service’s financial challenges, help reduce wasteful spending, improve the effectiveness of federal programs and curb the nation’s deficit.

The proposals are:

1) Implementing Postal Reform;
2) Closing the Tax Gap;
3) Strengthening Medicare and Medicaid Program Integrity;
4) Eliminating and Recovering Improper Payments;
5) Improving Federal Agency Information Technology Management; and
6) Improving Federal Agency Property Management and Disposal

“My subcommittee’s oversight jurisdiction is broad and, over the years, my colleagues and I have developed non-partisan solutions to a wide range of activities of the federal government that are characterized by wasteful and inefficient spending,” wrote Sen. Carper. “Our credo is, in effect, better results for less money or, at the very least, better results for the same amount of money. As the ‘Supercommittee’ weighs some very difficult choices as it tries to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions and hopefully more, I believe these recommendations might help ease its burden somewhat by identifying areas across the federal government where we can achieve real savings and more effective governance without making harmful cuts to critical programs.”

A copy of the letter’s introduction is below.

For a full copy of the letter, please click here.

October 12, 2011

The Honorable Jeb Hensarling, Co-Chair
The Honorable Patty Murray, Co-Chair
Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction
825B Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Representative Hensarling and Senator Murray:

I am writing to ask that you consider including a number of deficit reduction measures in the proposal that the Joint Select Committee makes to Congress this fall.

Each of the measures discussed below has been examined in recent years by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, which I currently chair. My subcommittee’s oversight jurisdiction is broad and, over the years, my colleagues and I have developed non-partisan solutions to a wide range of activities of the federal government that are characterized by wasteful and inefficient spending. Our credo is, in effect, better results for less money or, at the very least, better results for the same amount of money. Additionally, we have examined and embraced a number of ways to address the serious financial crisis facing the U.S. Postal Service to enable it to eventually to return to prosperity and stop adding to the federal budget deficit.

The attachments to this letter detail the legislative proposals that have been developed in response to this subcommittee’s work. Legislative text and further background materials on each are also attached. These proposals are:

1) Implementing Postal Reform;
2) Closing the Tax Gap;
3) Strengthening Medicare and Medicaid Program Integrity;
4) Eliminating and Recovering Improper Payments;
5) Improving Federal Agency Information Technology Management; and
6) Improving Federal Agency Property Management and Disposal

I respectfully request that you consider each of these proposals as part of your final plan. If you have any questions about these proposals, feel free to reach out to me, or have your staff contact my subcommittee Staff Director, John Kilvington, at 224-7061.

Sincerely yours,

Senator Thomas R. Carper
Chairman
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security

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